Friday, December 3, 2010

THE FIRST THANKSGIVING

Our family has been through a lot of change this year. Emily graduated from high school, Teddy graduated from college, and as Daniel would say, "we brought home an Asian"! Since most any change is outside my very confined comfort zone I have felt a little "off kilter" at times these past few months. Consequently, I have looked very forward to the holiday season, along with all of our familiar and comfortable and wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas traditions. Emphasis on the word tradition.

This year however, thanks to my mother-in-law, who spent a large part of the last year very ill, I had to cope with a serious "Who moved my Cheese" situation. For the past 30 years we have eaten Thanksgiving dinner at her house. Not just any Thanksgiving dinner, I'm talking a feast beautiful enough to be featured in a Norman Rockwell painting, and delicious enough to serve the Queen! This year, because she had not been well, Susan's sister Julie offered to do the whole shebang at her house. And I'm thinking, "O.K., so you had a little near death experience Dolores, get up, shake the dust off, get to cooking, it'll do you good!" But, everyone else insisted, they all felt she needed a break, so I was over-ridden.

Turns out, (and I'm not sure exactly how long it will take me to finally get this) change IS good! In fact, in this case it was GREAT! Our first Thanksgiving at James and Julie's house (and Lily's first Thanksgiving ever) was one of those "never want it to end" kind of experiences. The food was great, and there was a lot of it! Notably, there was the largest container of macaroni and cheese I have ever seen. It probably weighed 75 lbs. Julie and James spent the entire time making sure everyone was well fed, comfortable and having a great time.

Our beautiful niece Lori, transformed her parent's master bedroom into "The Lily Pad". It was a place for Lily to go and de-stress if she got overwhelmed in this very new situation. There were dolls and stuffed animals, and books and music and a huge comfortable place for Lily (and me) to take a nap. Lori even had a special CD in the boom box that was soothing and sleep inducing. It worked!

Anyway, we all had a blast, and my poor recovering mother-in-law got some well deserved time off! Oh, I forgot to mention that she did in fact cook the turkey. And strange as it seems, she had apparently gained enough strength to leave the following Monday for a whirlwind tour of Germany. Guess that "cooking break" really did the trick!

Anyway, I guess God is getting me used to change, and letting me know that maybe it won't be so bad. As I mentioned a blog or so ago, I have been totally upended by David Platt's book Radical, and I can guarantee you this, change is indeed coming for the Cheek family. Stay tuned!

Oh and I promised my nephew Gregory, that I would mention him in my next blog. So there you go Gregory!